He tried to think of someone who felt that way about him. His sister wouldn’t feel that way, and his mother was too sick to care. That left only his crew.
Would they feel that way about me were that my fate?
A flash of maroon caught his attention before he could think too deeply on that—another Archer—and Finn darted back through the gate and into the city. It was time for him to disappear.
Chapter Two
Finn always found it strange that the city would hold a festival when someone was sentenced to die, but it did have its advantages. He sneaked away, knowing he’d have to get to the others soon enough, but it wasn’t the meeting time yet.
The streets in the Brinder section were narrower than those where he and Oscar had wandered earlier in the day, with buildings and run-down shops lining them, and tall homes scrunched together on others. Not only were they narrower, but they stank in ways that part of the city didn’t. There was the stench of the pigs corralled near the slaughterhouse, a foul odor that permeated everything in this part of the city. It mingled with that of refuse and waste, both human and other. No chain gangs were assigned to this part of the city to keep it clean like there were in other sections.
It was home. Or had been before he’d lost his father, and his mother had sunk into illness. Finn had given up thinking that his father would ever be released, which meant he had to provide for his mother. Someone did.
As he’d been leaving the execution site, he’d considered heading toward the tavern with the others, but the King had specified a specific time to meet—four bells—and it would be too early. A better use of his time was to stop at his home and drop off some of the coin the boy had snatched then dropped. Knowing his sister, Lena wouldn’t even want the money, as if she were too good for it. She hadn’t been too good for it when it had come from their father.
The homes out there were small and crammed together. There weren’t the same alleys as there were in other parts of the city, and when there were, they were even narrower than those higher up in the city. He stepped over a puddle of water—or piss; he couldn’t tell with the angle of the sun reflecting off the surface—and nearly slipped in something else.
What he wouldn’t give to get out of there. It was the reason he preferred to sleep at the tavern as much as possible these days.
Three small children ran along the street, chasing each other. Their clothing was tattered, and all had wild hair. One of them carried a rope, chasing the others. Their high-pitched voices carried, and in the distance, someone shouted at them, but the boys ignored it.
Finn nodded to a pair of men about his age. Bruisers, given their size and the leathers they wore, and he would have expected them to have been more discreet about the role they played, but one of them even carried his club in hand, leaving it dangling at his side.
Ducking to the side of the road, he let them pass. It was better to stay out of the way of bruisers. Who knew who they worked for? Anger the wrong boss and there could be repercussions—the kind Finn tried to avoid. He needed to stay in good with the King; he worked with one of the best crews in the city and didn’t want to mess that up.
When the bruisers were past, Finn hurried onward. Though this wasn’t the nicest section of the city—or even close to it—it was uncommon for there to be bruisers. There must be a crew working here.
Turning the corner, he practically ran into Helda. She was a year or so younger than him and friends with his sister. She had a pretty face and rich brown eyes he could imagine swallowing him when she looked at him.
Helda and Lena had been friends for as long as Finn could remember, though Helda had the advantage that her father was a baker and had more connections than Finn and Lena’s parents had. Besides that, she was pretty and nice and didn’t really belong in Brinder.
Before becoming the thief, his father had been honorable like Helda’s father. As an assistant to a cartwright, there had always been the possibility that he would learn the trade himself, even if he was not formally apprenticed. When Finn’s mother got sick, his father had needed money that working as a cartwright’s assistant wouldn’t provide.
“Finn? I heard you got yourself a crew. What are you doing working outside your section?”
“I’m not working. Just coming to see my mother.”
She tugged on her drab green dress. When she saw him looking at the flash of cleavage, she flushed briefly. “I figured you’d be outside the Teller Gate, watching.”
“Most people enjoy the festivals, Helda. I could go with you sometime.”
“My father doesn’t like me going out there. He says it’s too dangerous.”
Finn started to smile before realizing that she didn’t. “You could stay inside the wall and enjoy the festivities. You don’t have to go out and watch it.”
“I couldn’t imagine watching,” she said with a shiver.
“Watching is bad enough. I can’t imagine pushing a man to his death.”
Helda offered a hint of a smile. “That’s because you wanted to be a surgeon.”
“That was a long time ago,” he said.
“Not that long.” She frowned at him. “You can’t run with a crew your whole life, Finn. I bet you could still find a guild to take you in.”
“The guilds don’t pay as well as the crew.”
“That’s all that matters to you?”
“Shouldn’t it?”
Helda looked as if she wanted to say something but bit it back. “Good day, Finn.”
He nodded as he watched her go, wishing he knew a way to better talk to her. He could try another time. Right now, he needed to keep going before it got too late.
When he reached the door to his old home, he paused.
The paint had long since faded. In this section of the city, paint didn’t last long on many of the doors. It was almost as if something about the city repelled it, turning everything into streaks of faded color, giving it a sad and dreary appearance. At least the door remained solid. Finn had spent everything he’d collected since their father had disappeared to ensure the door and the home were as protected as he could make them. Seeing the bruisers out on the street, he knew that was the right thing for him to have done.
Fishing a key from the band he had tied around his neck, he unlocked the door and hurriedly stepped inside before closing and locking it behind him again. A dim lantern glowed in the small entrance, but there wasn’t much light otherwise.
The home smelled musty.
Hadn’t my sister been here recently?
Finn didn’t spend that much time here any longer. Most of the time, he caught a rest in one of the rooms in the tavern, but on the occasion when he did return, he didn’t usually find it like this.
“Mother?” he called out, heading along the hall, before stopping at her room. Finn tested the door, and it swung open with a creak.
His mother rested on the bed, snoring softly.
She was thin, possibly even thinner than she had been when he’d last seen her. Color had drained from her face, and she breathed irregularly.
As much as he’d wanted to, there wasn’t anything he could do for her. Before his father had gotten pinched, Finn had entertained approaching one of the guilds to learn healing to help her. But that was long ago, and he was a different person now.